Poltroon University will soon host a lecture by Big Prize Laureate Dr. Professor Guss Badeen of the Swiss Federal Institute of Quantum Spot Studies in Outerlocken, Switzerland. Dr. Badeen began his work at the Soviet All-Union Agriculture and Artillery Institute in Pissov-on-Don, USSR. After the entertaining implosion of the Soviet Union, Academician Badeen made his way to Switzerland where he is now Emeritus Langweilig Professor of Quantum Agriculture. He will speak on the topic of “My Journey to Sweden with Quantum Spots.”
Admission is free but due to limited seating in the Alderaan auditorium, tickets will be required. Tickets can be obtained online at poltroon_univ.org/QSpot.
Poltroon University is located in Guapo, Arizona, adjacent to the scenic Desiccated Wasteland National Monument. Poltroon is a selective private illiberal arts institution serving the educational needs of junior varsity students. On campus visits are welcome.
During a recent trip to Texas, I rented a car as one does. It was a 2023 Jeep something-or-other. What kind of Jeep? A white one. It turns out that I own and drive a 1998 Jeep Cherokee. Obviously, there have been continuous upgrades over the years. One of the “improvements” is the graphic user interface, GUI, controlling the radio, ventilation and navigation. Maybe some other things- I couldn’t tell. Annoyingly, the thing searches for your phone as soon as the car powers up and complains when it can’t make a connection. It’s the goddamned internet of everything slithering up around my ankles insisting on my attention.
At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, I have to say that I find the trend towards automotive graphic user interfaces quite annoying. Certain features that were once controlled by knobs or buttons are now controlled on the GUI. If you want to adjust the air conditioning while driving, there is no longer a knob to grab without taking your eyes off the road. A knob can be turned on bumpy roads without looking at it. A GUI requires that you make a precise finger contact with a screen and not have it slide around.
Auto manufacturers have known forever that car customers are like baboons when it comes to buying cars. Any shiny new thing on the vehicle will draw their attention and increase the odds of a sale. The GUI in a new car will attract customers like flies to a dung heap, they thought. The appeal of automotive modernism is a sure thing for car makers. It’s true.
The appearance of the GUI in automobiles was no doubt preceded by a highly focused sales campaign by the electronics industry. I can just see it. Conference rooms packed with C-suite executives watching slick presentations touting the inevitability of the automotive GUI and the excitement of customers swarming dealerships waving cash at the sales team. What a wondrous future it is that lies before us. How can we cram every bell and whistle into these blessed touch screens? How can we print money even faster?
I am making a stand here and now to keep the control knob and the button, well known by the ancients to be reliable and simple. So it was and so it shall be.
The GUI is something that I will resist until I move from being on the top of the grass to 6 feet below the grass. Ok, I guess I am being a Luddite here but I don’t care.
Colorado’s very own congressperson, the twice elected Rep. (R) Lauren Boebert of the 3rd Congressional District, was caught misbehaving during a theater presentation of Beetlejuice at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts the other day. Besides vaping and some very mild hooliganism, she was caught on surveillance video making out with her date. Like many others who have attended Beetlejuice, they couldn’t resist the urgent pull of their tingly bits. You may recall that Pee Wee Herman had a similar problem as well.
Let me emphasize that there is nothing wrong with making out, mind you. I know many who claim to have done this. After all, this was the true purpose of the drive-in movie theater in years past. Heaven only knows how many solid citizens walking around today were conceived at a drive-in. I think that the move away from bench seating in the automobile had a negative effect in this. But I digress.
Colorado’s 3rd District covers quite a bit of turf as you can see. Most of it is desiccated and somewhat vertical so the overall population density is low, thus the large size. A lot like Wyoming. There is a bit of agriculture but no real corn and soybean acreage like a proper farm state.
As with other western states, Colorado has a mix of folks of polar opposite politics who find themselves concentrated in separate zones. Running down the middle of the state is the majority of the population stretching from Ft. Collins to Colorado Springs. Nobody can decide if Pueblo is part of this corridor despite being on I-25. This is the urban corridor along interstate highway I-25 and west to the start of the Rocky Mountains. This band of settlement has for the last few election cycles voted majority Democrat and has driven state politics in the legislature and the governor’s office. Oh, and the House of Representatives and the Senate too. This includes the I-70 corridor running west halfway to Utah. There are scattered islands of liberalism like Durango smack in the middle of Boebert country. I feel for them- really, I do.
Some have tried to explain away Boebert’s behavior as being not uncommon for a refugee from that Fertile Crescent of sweaty redneck-ism, Florida. She is after all a pistol packin’ grandma at age 36 and close to being properly “deevorced.” Regardless of her background, she has lifted herself from the obscurity of the swamps to become a full-throated Centurion of MAGAstan. It is a real accomplishment.
America is now a place where audio and video tapes of titillating content starring national politicians will not lead to their downfall. Instead, they get an uptick in their popularity by rabid apologists who will make urgent whataboutism style counter-claims about Hunter’s laptop. MAGA folk cheer their politicians like people do at a professional wrestling match- with vigor and encouragement of more violence.
East of the I-25 corridor you soon encounter another conservative swatch of the state, border-to-border between two state panhandles- Nebraska and Oklahoma. This area has much more pivot irrigated farmland than in the western side of the state. Corn, wheat, and sugar beets are popular crops east of the interstate. Through what I suspect were underhanded dealings in the past, Oklahoma is said to have been paid to be a buffer between Colorado and Texas. Many will say that this was a smart move. (Relax- it’s a joke)
In Colorado we have two bookend corridor cities that are well known for their politics. Boulder, northwest of Denver, is to Colorado what San Francisco is to California, but without Silicon Valley or a suspension bridge. It is liberal progressive and a bit on the exotic side. The Hippie movement arrived in the 60’s and never faded away completely. In the 70’s and 80’s you could see ex-hippies with thinning gray ponytails tooling around town in their Beamers. No one bats an eye when weird news sprays out of there. It’s expected. Every state should have a Boulder. Look at Texas of all places- they have Austin.
Colorado Springs, on the other hand, is deeply entangled with far-right conservative Christian evangelicals. Add to this mix a large population of very conservative retired military and you have something very special. The city plays host to Fort Carson and the North American Air Defense Command, NORAD, deep within Cheyenne Mountain southwest of town. You can bet that the Russian and Chinese strategic commands have the exact coordinates of this facility. The US Air Force Academy resides in the forest north of town with its unique chapel jutting proudly above the landscape.
Located at the base of Pikes Peak, “The Springs” enjoys considerable scenic splendor and a conservative upper middle-class tenor. None of my liberal friends contemplate moving there no matter how splendiferous the place may be. It’s a cryin’ shame. This is the city where the wedding cake bakery went to the Supreme Court to protect their right to decline to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. They won. If I were a bakery owner who didn’t want to do business with someone, I would have given an outrageous price or a 12-month lead time or both with payment up front. There are easy yet subtle ways to poison an awkward business deal.
It will be interesting to see if Lauren gets reelected in 2024 given her antics. I have a nauseating feeling that she will be reelected given the demographics of her district. It’s one of those “she may be an idiot, but she’s OUR idiot” things that MAGAstan people can relate to. We’ll see.
Poltroon University, Guapo, Arizona, 7 September, 2023. The Starkrakken Institute and the Poltroon University Semi-Analytical Chemistry department will partner with the National Institute of Standards headquartered in Gaither Brothers, MD, to develop new and improved specifications for the standard taper joint used in chemical laboratories. After months of meetings on the need for a disruptive change in the field, a special committee has been formed from sales managers from across the international glassware industry as well as two emeritus adjunct professors from Poltroon. MBAs from across the industry applaud this disruptive change.
This change comes at a time when the geometry of chemical glassware is evolving. The once standard circular cross-section of glassware is gradually being replaced by those with an elliptical cross section. This disruptive change started in pharmaceuticals and is gradually descending into academia.
The new Elliptical Ground Glass Joint (patent pending).
Joint clips will need updating as well. Representatives from the Joint-Clip Injection Molders Alliance Group will convene a special subcommittee on this matter. Joint clip injection molders from across the globe will be invited to provide input. The prestigious Joint-Clip Injection Moulder’s Guild of the Faroe Islands will preside over this effort.
“University chemistry departments will complain vigorously,” said committee chairperson Deborah Ann Harry, Sales Director at Kimble-Brontes, “but they’re always bitchin’. They’ll get over it, they always do.”
There is one issue to contend with, Harry said, and “that is the inability to rotate joints with an elliptical cross-section joint.” Harry noted that this was an opportunity to offer rotating adapters as an up-sell. “We’re selling steak, not sizzle,” Harry added.
(This is a 2012 post that I’ve dredged up to run through the mill again.)
Poltroon University, Guapo, Arizona. A scandal has rocked the Institute of Quantum Cogitation at Poltroon University. A graduate student and supervising faculty member stand accused of academic fraud. The office of University Chancellor Clodagh A. Gatwick released a statement indicating the matter was under internal investigation.
Associate professor Corey Irwin was placed on administrative leave while the graduate student, Ragnar Ostrom, faces possible suspension.
Irwin and Ostrom were initially accused of falsifying results from a series of thought experiments published in Physics Expecta Acta, 2007, Section B, 256-278. However, it was later determined that the falsified thought experiment results were in fact plagiarized from a future thought experiment to be published by Faroe Island physicists Spotsandottir and Dotsson. The two physicists were surprised to learn that their work was being usurped by other workers.
The Society of Thought Experimentation was contacted for comment but issued a press release stating the Society was still imagining what it’s position would be.
Now that we are well into tornado season in North America, I thought I’d dredge this old 2007 post up out of the cobwebs in the dungeon. As Uncle Al pointed out in the comments, Middle Easterners did have dust devils so a vortex of wind was not unknown there. These, however, are no match for a full-blown F4 tornado.
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One has to wonder what the original inhabitants of North America thought of the tornado (how do you say “WTF” in Lakota?). Without a doubt, Native Americans were visited by tornadoes. The experience must have certainly left an impression. It would be interesting to hear any stories that may be out there. This topic has been the subject of scholarly study.
Little record of native American lore remains regarding their experiences with the tornado.
“The Cheyenne language has several words for tornadoes and their related storms: hevovetaso (tornado), ma’xehevovetaso (big whirlwind), ehohaatamano’e (threatening weather). For the Cheyenne, the tornado is not some kind of evil predatory force or a random assault from a blind and dumb atmospheric soup with no concern for human life. A tornado has a job, Yellowman told me, and that is to restore balance to the environment. The tornado speaks to the native people, in their respective tribal languages, in a voice that sounds like fire. Before it reaches the tribal land, the tornado tells the elders how big it’s going to be, not in the technical language of the EF scale but in colloquial terms: small, medium, big, huge.“
North America is geographically privileged in that there is the possibility that overland southerly flows of cold dry air from the north can readily contact flows of warm moist air from the Pacific, Gulf of Mexico, or the Atlantic. Vertical mixing of unstable humid air results in convection cells that are further driven by the latent heat of condensation. These humid flows are spun up by the Coriolis effect and wind shear to afford monster anvil storm cells that can tower to 50,000 ft or higher.
Diagram of an anvil cloud. Source: NOAA
Like many places, here in Colorado we often see isolated storm cells in the early evenings of summer, red in color at low altitude changing to a billowy yellow-white at altitude near sunset. Very often you can see mammatocumulous features signifying violent mixing activity. It’s no place for an airplane.
A murus, or wall cloud forms at the bottom interface where cold, water-saturated downdraft air is pulled into the adjacent column of rising air. The moisture condenses quickly and at low altitude to form the wall cloud. On occasion a tornado will drop out of a wall cloud.
It is interesting to speculate as to how our modern mythologies and iconographies might have been different if the tornado phenomenon had been common in the Mediterranean and the middle east. Would Charleton Heston have summoned a tornado to smite Yule Brynner’s Egyptians rather than parting the Red Sea and drowning the buggers? Perhaps the Pharaohs might have built great stone helices rather than obelisks. Aristotle might have written a treatise on the handedness of helical flows or whether the air flowed radially into or out of a tornado.
If the tornado had been a common phenomenon in the middle east during the iron age would the “Big Three” Abrahamic religions today feature tornadic themes in their texts and monuments? If so, perhaps the great cathedrals of Europe might today have relief sculptures or stained glass windows portraying the Israelites or Philistines being driven hither and thither by the swirling wrath of the Almighty’s cyclone.
It turns out that I have no aptitude at all for ball sports or dancing. My long suffering spouse has been forced to dance without me. My natural athletic abilities are concentrated on my uncanny ability to jump out of the way or just standing back. This proclivity is rich in survival benefits. For instance, I’ve never torn a ligament sliding into first base or cracked my head on the dance floor. Nor have I ever taken an elbow to the eye in basketball. No abrasions or grass stains from flag football either.
I do rather like to watch rugby though. I admire the pre-game Māori Haka demonstration for its drama and its sincere invitation to rumble. Hockey is another one I can watch at the game. The puck is always in motion. Unlike baseball, with hockey or rugby something is always happening. Even if a rugby player is injured, they continue to play around the body. I admire that.
Baseball games are just too damned long, even with the new rules. Ninety minutes should do it. They just stretch it out for concession sales. Some folks like to guzzle $9 utility beers and gnaw on $14 slices of pizza to the sound of old timey organ music. I can go maybe once a season, but more? Nope.
Watching golf is a colossal snooze fest. I do enjoy watching chess matches though- even that is more exciting than golf. And the muted voices of the announcers as if they have to keep their voices low. Gimme a break. Golf is for idlers. It is a meaningless difficult task. I understand that golf is hard. I just don’t care. My conception of hell involves watching golf in church.
Basketball? If you can dunk the ball, the hoop is just too low. For crying out loud. Enough said.
NFL football? Good gravy. I just watch the last 5 minutes. The manufactured gladiator drama pitting millionaires against each other is just nauseating. And the guys delivering the play-by-play color in the background yammering on about failed strategy as if randomness had no part in it. With all of the rules, it is nearly a technology, not a game.
Soccer? Good grief. Need I say it?
Ok, time to come clean. It isn’t the sports so much as it is the immense crowds at these live events. I truly despise being in a crowd. In fairness, the crowd probably despises me back.
This was first posted 1/3/2010 and is herein posted once again. My big question is, what the hell is with the saucer design for interstellar travel? Saucers have a large surface to volume ratio which inherently restricts the size of everything they would have to bring along. Don’t they have food and luggage to pack? The same argument holds even if they are tiny buggers. This line of investigation will have to wait for another post.
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Imagine that you and a companion are out for an evening stroll after a big dinner, say in a park somewhere. You hear a curious whining sound and look up to see an alien spaceship on a landing approach to the park. The craft lands and the crew scuttles off to perform some tedious abduction or organ harvest in the neighborhood.
Your companion exclaims “Golly! There is something you don’t see every day!”. But you’re unmoved by your companions incisive commentary. Because you see this as a long sought opportunity to examine an alien craft up close.
What would you look at? The propulsion system? Or perhaps the weapons array or guidance system? Pffft.
I would look at something much more mundane. I think it would be very enlightening to see what kind of fasteners they use. That’s right. Fasteners. Nuts, bolts, latches, bungees, straps, nails, hinges, hooks & loops, and rivets. How do these confounded exo-buggers hold things together? What’s the deal?
Fasteners are mechanical contrivances used to restrain objects into a desired configuration, often by the application and fixing of tension or compression through some structural element. Think of all of the fasteners we encounter before we set foot out the door every morning.
Elastic articles of clothing perform a fastening function through the application of tension about numerous body parts through the miracle of Spandex/Lycra. Shoe laces are fastening devices that apply and hold tension on opposing shoe upper elements wrapped over the arch of the foot.
Moving upwards, the zipper is a fastener that works in concert with a trouser/skirt button or snap fastener. The belt and buckle are a fastener ensemble that together apply and hold tension about the circumference of the waist to keep ones trousers from succumbing to the pull of gravity.
Other fasteners include shirt buttons, brassiere connectors (damn those things!), earring wires, eyeglass frames (they connect to your face), cell phone belt attachments, the deadbolt on the front door, all manner of electrical connectors, and the list goes on and on. Electrical connectors are especially interesting because they combine the functions of electrical continuity and fastener. All are a compromise between the competing interests of biomechanics, convenience, safety, regulatory standards, and custom.
So, back to the space ship. How would space faring beings approach the problem of fastening materials and components. Would they use individual components fastened together or would they use integrated component assemblies that support multiple functions? Perhaps the mechanical fastener question is moot because components would be cast, glued, or welded.
Integrated components have a certain appeal, but, by their integrated nature could serve as a node from which to initiate failure propagation to multiple systems. For instance, if a battery was built to serve as a structural element for the craft, could a battery failure of some sort serve to initiate a structural failure mode? At what point is it foolish to integrate systems rather than leave them distributed? As always, it depends.
I think an alien spacecraft would have at least a few kinds of obvious fasteners. Surely alien technologies are subject to component failures and would require occasional repair. Of interest would be the concessions to alien biomechanics.
Humans occasionally use wingnuts to fasten objects that need not be permanently affixed. The wingnut is simply a style of threaded nut that has two modest protuberances that allow for torsion and compression to be applied by the fingers and wrist. The wingnut is not functional for beings who lack the sort of articulated digits that we have. Perhaps an alien being would have a latch or other contrivance to accommodate its appendages.
Of course, all of this alien talk is just a device with which to cast the matter of fasteners into a more interesting light. Fasteners are part of our collective technological heritage and are rather under-appreciated. But, if you are unfortunate enough to be abducted by aliens, I suspect that the matter of alien fasteners might be of immediate interest.
Originally posted April 23, 2009. Yes, it’s a shabby repost.
Never one to allow reason to interfere with sentimentality, my blackened heart is softened somewhat by the recent shipment of Lipton Tea bags delivered to Th’ Gaussling from an online admirer via the US Postal Service.
The tea in this gift shall be symbolically applied to the local waterway, but not before being used to formulate some refreshing iced beverage via aqueous extraction. A vessel filled with aqueous goodness (OPE-Our Pure Essence) will be charged with the anthocyanin and alkaloid laden forest litter for extended exposure to solar radiation. Brownian motion will be relied upon to disperse the colloidal value away from the biomass.
Once so processed, the fortifying beverage will be passed through a pair of kidneys as a symbol of my dark contempt for the IRS. This nephro-raffinate will be discharged into the municipal fluid collection system for a kind of Nicene rectification that will provide further philosophical processing of the symbolic gesture. Finally, after the Liptonian fluids have been subjected to Libertarian aeration and Calvinist filtration, the clarified symbol will be discharged into the river for its turbulent hero’s journey to the drinking water inlets of New Orleans and beyond.
What an amazing time it is to be alive. Spring is just around the corner, Major League Baseball is finally trying to speed up baseball games, and Melania’s husband has his tit in a wringer from his infidelity. Just think of it! Springtime in America!
It is a brainstem-level reflex for Melania’s Teflon Don to claim that every single accusation of malfeasance is politically motivated. Of course, this in itself is a political ploy. Like the Alien, Melania’s husband just keeps showing up. Remember how Ellen Ripley finally rid herself of the Alien?
Will the supporters of Melania’s husband ever give up on him? Given the prolonged tolerance of his incompetence and serial bad behavior, it seems doubtful.
Remember kids, if you are going to tell a lie, tell a big one and repeat it often! That way you can keep kicking the can down the road while people struggle to keep up with you.
Lamentations on Chemistry 